Illinois Shutters Decrepit Prison
As of September 30, 2024, the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) had transferred most of the 558 prisoners held at Stateville Correctional Center a month before. The move followed a preliminary injunction (PI) issued by the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois on August 9, 2024, in a long-running class-action over conditions at the 99-year-old lockup.
DOC prisoner Lester Dobbey filed the suit pro se in 2013, alleging infestations of birds, mice and cockroaches, plus failure to provide cleaning supplies at Stateville. Additional allegations included incessant lighting that disrupted prisoners’ sleep, inadequate ventilation and a contaminated water supply. The Court certified a class in the case in early 2014, and attorneys from Loevy & Loevy in Chicago were appointed class counsel in April 2014.
The parties engaged in settlement negotiations that stretched though the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, conditions at the prison continued to deteriorate, leaving prisoners dodging falling concrete and sweltering in the summer behind nailed-shut windows. The lousy conditions were blamed for the June 2024 death of Michael Broadway, 51; as PLN reported, the asthmatic prisoner succumbed on the top floor of the stifling prison without so much as a fan while temperatures outside soared to 91 degrees Fahrenheit. [See: PLN, Aug. 2024, p.34.]
Plaintiffs then moved for a PI, which the Court granted based on evidence “showing that Stateville faces over $250 million in deferred maintenance, resulting in risks posed by falling concrete due to deteriorated masonry walls, ceilings, steel beams and window lintels.” DOC had until September 30, 2024, to transfer out all prisoners, except for about two dozen held in the healthcare unit, “a separate housing building that does not exhibit the risks of falling concrete that exists in the general housing units,” the Court said. See: Dobbey v. Weilding, USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:13-cv-01068.
State lawmakers approved a 2025 budget request from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) for $900 million to rebuild both this prison and Logan Correctional Facility for women on the Stateville site. However, DOC officials said those plans are not “shovel ready.” Meanwhile, guards represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 remained on the job at the empty lockup, whose closure they picketed earlier in September 2024. They wanted to negotiate terms for relocating staffers from Stateville and also where the affected prisoners would be sent—details DOC has not shared yet.
Sources: AP News, Southern Illinois Now, WTTW